Senators blast airlines, push passenger rights legislation

US Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a leading advocate for legislation that would establish a federal "Passenger Bill of Rights," told Air Transport Assn. President and CEO James May during a Senate hearing yesterday that he was "living in a dream world" and blasted airlines that have not "lived up" to voluntary customer service rules they claimed to adopt in 1999 after 4,000 passengers were stranded on Northwest Airlines' aircraft for up to 8 hr. during a Detroit snowstorm.
Boxer was ...